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T&D: Direct Instruction Is Needed At First

Depending on the Learner’s Incoming K/S

Based on their education and/or experience. In an Enterprise Context.

I knew that my approach was in line with Direct Instruction – going back to something I’d learned at an NSPI Conference back in the 1980s. But I wouldn’t have been able to cite sources or research about it.

I’m not formally trained/educated – and my learnings have come from my mentors and business partners and clients and my project experiences as an ISD – Instructional Systems Design consultant since 1982.

So a recent Twitter Exchange – that spilled from one day to the next – had me Google Direct Instruction only to discover that one of the “founders” had recently passed. Here is a Blog Post about that.

And I found the graphic on the left side of my graphic – the words of which felt familiar.

I recall wondering how my Lesson Map construct, that I created in 1990 for a consulting engagement with Illinois Bell, fit with the Research. I created the Lesson Map to allow me to use my FGP – Facilitated Group Process in the level of design known most frequently as ADDIE – just as I had been using the FGP in the design at the Architectural level of ISD that I and my partners branded as Curriculum Architecture Design back in 1982.

I wanted a Visual Tool to use in a meeting,a Facilitated Group Process with Master Performers, Other SMEs, Supervisors and sometimes Novice Performers (with enough experience to know what the job was in reality but not hardened by years in the trenches) – and that’s what the Illinois Bell client gave me.

I had been playing around with the methods, tools and techniques of what became my MCD – Modular Curriculum Development level of ISD for a number of years – and I wished to formalize the approach so that our consulting staff at SWI – Svenson & Wallace Inc – could follow up years after an initial engagement with a more “common process, and set of practices” than we had been doing – and a client had called me out on that – as they felt that the promise of ReUse was missing from a project another colleague at SWI had just completed. I checked – and yes – it was missing.

As I was in charge of SWI’s ISD methodology-sets – I began to address that by codifying the concepts, models, methods, tools and techniques – including the language – for our staff consultants. And to make all of that more rigid I commissioned the development of a Database to support those methods.

My reasoning was that Databases are somewhat unforgiving – and would act as a forcing function for all staff – including my two business partners who would often wing it in the Analysis Phase and leave me to handle their project’s Design Phase with a varied set of inputs that they produced using the FGP. And I needed to stop that.

My Lesson Map format and process – the subject of an upcoming webinar for the ISPI BABS Chapter (Bay Area and Boise State) on April 11th BTW – was to box in my staff consultants so that I could improve the quality of inputs to downstream phases.

And I sought advise from others at the time (1990) about how well this format (and methods) fit with the prevailing theories and practices of those dark arts known as Instructional Design (ID) and Instructional Systems Design (ISD).

I was given the thumbs up from all whom I sought a reaction from.

Here is my view of how Lesson Mapping supports a Direct Instruction approach.

Note that sometimes there’s more than One T&D Lesson in a T&D Event – and in my T&D Architectural approach there’s a string of Lessons for building and reinforcement (Spaced Learning) – as I always subscribed to the “Instructional Systems” concepts in how I viewed ISD – versus ID which is Instructional Design at an incremental level.

Not that many others would look at it this way – but for me – an ID builds Instructional Courses & Resources incrementally – and an ISDer architects them all so that they all work as a system of instruction.

Anyway….

Secondly

Now I also subscribe to the notion that at some point – on the Learning Curve – that the learner/Performer no longer needs the hand-holding approach of Direct Instruction – as they now know what they need to know, do know, and don’t know – and are ready to seek further knowledge, skills, etc. in a self-directed manner.

It’s Not All About Learning

It's All About Performance Competence - at the Individual level, the Team level, the Process level, the Organization level, the Value Chain level and at the Societal level ... or Worker, Work, Workplace and World.

Contact me if you'd like some help in planning and/or conducting an effort to determine and address the high priority instructional needs for a critical target audience. Instruction includes 1) Standalone Job Aids, 2) Job Aids Embedded in Training, 3) Training for Memorization and Honing Skills. Via Self-Paced, or Coached, or Group-Paced Modes of various Media.

Guy has served 80+ clients including over 45 F500 firms since November 1982.

Recipient of the ISPI - the International Society for Performance Improvement - Honorary Life Member Award - 2010 - for contributions to the Society and to the Technology for Performance Improvement (PI).

Founding member of ASQ’s Influential Voices Initiative - 2010. Served through 2015.

Guy W. Wallace collaborates with his Clients using predictable, visible, proven processes on time and on budget.

Client work won awards for AT&T, General Motors, HP and Siemens Building Technologies.

Guy's 40 years in the performance improvement/ training/ learning business have been focused in 2 key areas:

1- analysis of the organization and its business processes to derive the "Learning Requirements" from the "Performance Requirements" and...

2- design/architecting the configuration of instructional and informational content.

Guy conducts Performance Improvement projects, Curriculum Architecture Design projects, Instructional Design/Development projects, and he both formally and informally develops and coaches client staff in his ISD and Performance Improvement methods, processes, and in the use of his tools and techniques.

I Want Performance Thinking Before Design Thinking and for Design Thinking to Include a Focus on Transfer – So Here Are Some Random Graphics ;)

Flip It – Provide Most 10 Before Most 20 Before Most 70

I Prefer the Facilitated Group Process for Speed and Accuracy

Paths-Menus-Guides-Maps for Training and Learning and Knowledge Management

You Go Down The Learning Path to Go Up The Learning Curve – to go Up the Performance Competence Curve

Guy has been doing performance-based Training Paths and Planning Guides for clients since 1982. First published on Curriculum Architecture in Training Magazine in September 1984 and on the Analysis methods in NSPI's (now ISPI) PIJ in November 1984.

CAD Architects and MCD/IAD Builds/Buys the Content for a more seamless approach to OnBoarding and OnGoing T&D/L&D.